Photos: Go on the Front Lines of Ukraine’s Violent Protests

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Anti-government protesters rally on Independence Square. While initial protests were mainly comprised of students, violent clashes with police in which dozens of young people were injured, brought Ukrainians of all ages into the streets.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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Police in Mariinsky Park where they blocked the road near the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers building on January 24, 2014.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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Anti-government protesters gather along barricades on Hrushevskoho Street near Dynamo stadium during clashes with police on January 25, 2014.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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An anti-government protester throws a Molotov cocktail during clashes with police on Hrushevskoho Street near Dynamo stadium on January 25, 2014.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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Incendiary projectiles are ready to be used by anti-government protesters near Dynamo Stadium on January 24, 2014.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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Anti-government protesters sleep on the floor of the occupied Kiev City Hall.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

Medics tend to a gravely wounded anti-government protester in the lobby of the Hotel Ukraine, which has been converted to a medical clinic and makeshift morgue, on February 20, 2014.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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Chumak Taras, 20, from the town of Ivano-Frankivsk, in western Ukraine, rests inside the International Center of Culture and Arts, which is occupied by anti-government protesters.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

A woman wrapped in a European Union flag stops at a hot dog stand near Independence Square on December 11, 2013.Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

The first thing photographer Brendan Hoffman did upon waking up Thursday was check Twitter and the local news to see what was happening on the streets outside his hotel in Kiev. It’s just part of the routine when you’re a photojournalist covering the protests that have raged there for months. All was calm, at least for the moment.

By the time he left his hotel near Independence Square, though, Hoffman found a gruesome scene. Anti-government protesters and medics were carrying bloodied bodies into makeshift clinics–and morgues. Gunfire rang in the distance. Confusion reigned as government security forces clashed with protesters.

“There was no way to tell exactly what was happening, but people were saying some of it was snipers,” the 34-year-old photographer told WIRED by phone. “I did see a lot of people with a single shot to the head.”

Hoffman did what he always does: He grabbed his gear and ran toward the chaos. Hoffman, an American photographer based in Moscow and member of the Prime Collective, has been covering the protests intermittently for several months, and in that time he’s witnessed a lot of bloodshed. But this week has been especially bad, he said.

This week has been a turning point in the violence after a truce collapsed and diplomatic efforts by the United States and others failed. The opposition said as many as 100 people were killed on Thursday; city officials put the figure at 39, according to The New York Times. Hoffman says he thinks the number might be closer to 100, based on what he saw firsthand.

After leaving the hotel Hoffman worked his way through the crowd, moving toward the worst of the violence even as others ran away. That’s when he heard bullets whiz by. He and a group of journalists sought cover behind the only thing offering protection: A wall just three feet tall. Everyone crouched behind it as three or four bullets went just over their heads. The enormity of the situation suddenly hit him. Until that moment, Hoffman had merely been reacting. He’d simply been doing his job. It dawned on him that he might be in serious danger.

“I thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing in this situation? Why was I dumb enough to find myself here?'” he said.

Hoffman and the others huddled there for about five minutes. When the gunfire paused, they dashed to safety.

“We definitely moved expeditiously,” he said.

Hoffman doesn’t remember texting his wife from behind that wall, but he did send texts throughout the day. She’s in Moscow, and he was honest about the situation.

“I told her there were people being shot and that I was seeing it right in front of me,” he said. “If she was super worried she didn’t let on when I finally talked to her.”

It was a remarkable turn of events. Back in December, she joined him on assignment in Kiev for a weekend. It gave her a sense of where he is and what he does, which has helped her cope with the risk he faces. She’s also been watching a live coverage of protests so she can see follow the news.

Hoffman said he’s been surprised that he hasn’t been more shaken by what happened. He wonders if that might be some kind of defense mechanism. He found it difficult to continue making pictures, but he kept at it.

Anti-government protesters take a break to smoke cigarettes on a hill above Independence Square on February 20, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine. After several weeks of calm, violence has again flared between anti-government protesters and police, with dozens killed. Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

Even during the worst of the violence, Hoffman has been filing photos to his editors at Getty three times a day. His pictures have appeared in such places as The Washington Post and Al Jazeera. Until recently, it was easy to find a quiet cafe where he could grab a bite to eat or edit photos because the protests have revolved around Independence Square. Now that things have escalated, though, the city is shutting down.

There have been reports of journalists being harassed and roughed up, but Hoffman said he’s never felt like he’s been targeted. Just the opposite, in fact. The police have let him behind their lines, and he’s gotten to know many protesters. That kind of access has given him a deeper understanding of the conflict. The protests, as he sees them, have less and less to do with President President Viktor F. Yanukovych scuttling a trade deal with the European Union and instead aligning with Moscow.

“They’ve been saying it’s about something more fundamental. It’s about people who are tired of of these oligarchs in the government and tired of the corruption,” he says. “I think a lot of people view Russia as a corrupt country, and if the president is going to lean that direction then Russia is not going to put pressure on Ukraine to decrease that corruption. I don’t thing people are anti-Russia. They just don’t see Russia as a solution to the problems they want fixed.”

Until this week, the biggest risk Hoffman faced in Kiev was the occasional volley of rocks and Molotov cocktails. The cops typically returned fire with the same rocks they’d dodged, and vice-versa. Still, he’s always worn body armor just to be safe, and lately he’s been searching for ballistic glasses after seeing several protesters with eye injuries.

Professionally, photographing the protests has been easy because there has been no shortage of compelling images. Protestors have erected and burned tire walls to keep police at bay, creating a surreal backdrop to many photos. It’s been exceedingly cold, at times just 5 degrees Fahrenheit. At one point, he said, police used fire hoses to extinguish fires, creating a frosty backdrop to the wall of flames.

But Hoffman said there’s more to covering a protest than snapping pictures of violence. He’s spent hours chronicling moments between the madness, and those are in many ways more revealing. He has frames of protestors passed out from exhaustion, pictures of people reflecting on the chaos they were just a part of, and snapshots of people doing mundane things like eating.

“Sometimes it’s almost too good visually,” Hoffman said. “I definitely worry that it gets a little too cliché at times.”

When I first spoke to Hoffman Wednesday, he planned to remain in Kiev until Saturday. But he told me Thursday that he’s staying indefinitely. Many expect Yanukovych to declare a state of emergency, which could mean the deployment of the military and the risk of still more violence.

“As of now, the military isn’t out, but if you asked anyone out there they are going to tell you this is already a war,” he said.

UPDATE 12:40 p.m. Eastern 02/21/14: President Viktor Yanukovych joined opposition leaders on Friday in signing a deal to end the crisis. According to The Washington Post, the deal followed an all-night negotiations brokered by European and Russian officials. It calls for an immediate return to the 2004 constitution, which grants parliament the authority to choose the prime minister and most cabinet members. immediately reinstating the 2004 contitution, which A deal designed to end Ukraine’s long-running crisis was signed Friday afternoon by President Viktor Yanukovych and the three leaders of the political opposition, but it will be a hard sell among the thousands of demonstrators who have sustained months of protest.

The pact, reached after Ukraine’s bloody and fatal week of street fighting, and the product of all-night negotiations sponsored by European and Russian officials, calls for an immediate return to the 2004 constitution, which gives the parliament, not the president, the right to choose a prime minister and most of the cabinet.

A transition government is to be installed within 10 days, and a referendum on a new constitution is to be held in September.